Five Questions with Kris Allen

Six months after winning American Idol, Kris Allen talks about his new self-titled album and how he uses Twitter to let people see his "stupid side."We've got 5 more questions with Kris coming — stay tuned!

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THE THEME THAT GOES THROUGH THE WHOLE ALBUM IS RELATIONSHIPS AND COMMUNICATION, SOME KIND OF DISCONNECT BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE. WHAT ABOUT THAT THEME RESONATED WITH YOU AS SOMETHING YOU WANTED TO GET INTO?

"I've been in a very long relationship [with wife, Katy]. We've been together for like 8 years, and 98.94 percent of the time it's incredible, and the other whatever percent, there are fights and stuff, and that's how it is; I'm okay with that. When it happens, it's easy to get in that moment and remember how you feel, whether that's angry or upset. I tell people this: It's hard to write about walking in the park, but it's easy to write about a breakup."

WHEN YOU WERE WORKING ON THIS ALBUM, DID YOU LET YOUR FAMILY OR FRIENDS LISTEN TO ANY OF THE TRACKS IN PROGRESS?

"I tried not to let [my parents or brother] hear anything, because I wanted it to be a surprise and I didn't want them to get too involved either. I love my parents, but when you get too many people involved it gets…hard.

But I did get feedback from Cale [Mills, an old friend and current bandmate]. We are partners in crime, and I feel like he's got a good ear for things, and he's got good ideas, so after a recording session he'd be like, "maybe you should do this," and I'd always take his opinion.

And, obviously, I let my wife listen to stuff. She just likes music. She likes listening to stuff on the radio; she likes listening to indie rock stuff too. She's like the average listener."

RIGHT AROUND THE TIME OF THE AMERICAN IDOL AUDITIONS, YOU WERE IN COLLEGE, BUT YOU'VE SAID YOU WEREN'T TOO PSYCHED ABOUT IT, BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO BE DOING MUSIC. DID YOU EVER CONSIDER STUDYING MUSIC IN COLLEGE AS A WAY TO DO BOTH?

"I played viola all through high school and [University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas] actually gave me music scholarship, but I turned it down because I didn't want orchestra to be my major. If it would have been a music major, it would have been something completely different, because orchestra kind of takes over your life, and you have to practice 18 million times a day. I wanted to focus not so much classical music; I wanted to do pop music. It was probably a stubborn thing too, where I could have done both things at the same time but I wanted to spend most of my time making music."

YOU'VE MENTIONED THAT YOU'VE KEPT A JOURNAL. WAS THAT SOMETHING THAT INFLUENCED YOUR SONGWRITING? AND DO YOU STILL JOURNAL?

"Journaling is something that I've always tried to get into. In college I'd try to get into it and fail miserably, and then I kinda gave up on it for a time. And then actually I was writing with Joe King from The Fray, and he was like, "Dude, you have to keep a journal, that's the only way you can get everything down and not forget it." Because I forget how I feel sometimes. So now, I feel like I'm pretty good at it. I still want to be better. But I feel like I'm pretty good at it."

YOU POST ON TWITTER. DO YOU LOOK AT THAT AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO TALK WITH YOUR FANS, OR AS KIND OF A CHORE?

"At first, I looked at it as a chore, like, I don't want to do this. But I actually learned to have fun with it. And I would say that I try not to be too serious about it. On the show, you're not allowed to show all of your personality, so when you get on Twitter you can. I say the stupidest stuff, all the time, off of Twitter, and so I think Twitter is good way for people to get to know the stupid side of me."